free 2 think
free 2 think is a podcast hosted by Cody Davis and Jacob Cady, exploring faith, culture, politics, and the ideas shaping our world. Through thoughtful conversation, respectful disagreement, and a commitment to curiosity, we tackle hard topics without the outrage. Think deeply. Listen carefully. Stay free to think.
free 2 think
Ep. 12 | Flock Cameras: Crime Fighting or Surveillance State?
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Flock cameras and automated license plate readers are popping up in communities across the country—but what exactly are they doing?
In this episode, we break down how ALPRs work, how law enforcement uses them to solve crimes, and where legitimate privacy concerns begin. We look at the dystopian possibility of a massive surveillance network, like China, the idealistic vision of technology making our communities safer, and the more complicated reality somewhere in between.
Are Flock cameras a powerful crime-fighting tool, a step toward a surveillance state—or can both things be true?
Welcome back to Free to Think Everybody. And the other guy. His name is Jacob. Jacob, man. Well, hey, we're here to take on politics, culture, faith, and whatever else is worth talking about.
SPEAKER_02Without the outrage, without the talking points, and hopefully with a little common sense, right? Occasional outrage. And occasional common sense.
SPEAKER_03Common sense all the time. That's right. That's right. Sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Well, hey, today we're going to talk about a slightly controversial topic. Flock cameras. Did you know they're popping up all over the country? And depending on who you ask, they're either an incredible crime fighting tool or the beginning of the surveillance state. So today we're going to talk about flock cameras, the good, the bad, the ugly, and most importantly, the reality. What do they actually do? And should we be concerned? Are you concerned? Uh yes. Okay, good. I'm glad you're concerned. Are you? I'm concerned. I think we should always be concerned. But let's let's hold off on that real quick because I've got a quick question for you. Prenuptial agreements. Good bad hot take. Uh absolutely terrible.
SPEAKER_04Why? Because it's saying when we do get divorced, what are we going to argue about? So it's stupid. It's like you enter the marriage covenant saying we know this covenant is going to end someday. So what is the point of the covenant if not to be till death to us part? So they're they're pretty stupid.
SPEAKER_02They are. And you're you're essentially before you even get married, you're agreeing to the terms of your divorce. You're like saying when we get divorced, not if we get divorced, but when we get divorced, here's the terms, you own this, you own that, here's how the division happens. I'm sure it makes for a pretty simple, uncomplicated divorce.
SPEAKER_04Not that not that divorce is ever uncomplicated, but if you have enough to need a prenuptial agreement, then your divorce is probably guaranteed to not be short, comp uncomplicated, or you know, there's always going to be outrage and no common sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I thought it was interesting. A AEI put out this um study um and they said 50% of engaged or married couples under the age of 45 have negotiated the terms of their divorce before getting married. It's interesting too, because they also say that within the study um 84% of couples without prenups said they were highly committed to their marriage. Whereas only 70% of couples with prenups said they were highly committed to their marriage. So I mean it's at the end of the day, it's how committed are you?
SPEAKER_04I mean I would say the evidence or the the presence of a prenup means that you're not committed, no matter if you say you are or not. Yeah, you're looking for an out on the code. I'm committed for five years, for seven years, the seven year age, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're popular. I mean, I remember before I got married, and I've been married for almost 20 years now. I'm in night, you're nine, you're I mean in your 20s, so um yeah, coming up on 20.
SPEAKER_04But anyways, I remember Can I just say that that that's awesome. Yeah, I love I love to hear that. Whenever you hear anybody, a couple that's like, yeah, we've been married for such and such, and it's just like, yeah, keep going. Yeah, keep going. You got this.
SPEAKER_02But I remember one of my secular buddies before I got married, he with with all seriousness said, Did you guys do a prenup? And I looked at him and I was like, No, I did not do a prenup. I'm not planning to get divorced. Yeah. And he was like, like in his world, prenup is just what you do, it's the smart legal move. It's it's like getting health insurance or vehicle insurance or whatever insurance. It's a good legal move to get a prenup because it's most likely, and in today's day and age, he's probably not wrong. It's probably gonna happen based on percentages.
SPEAKER_03Probably. That doesn't mean it's not stupid.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree with you. Interested you're planning for divorce. But I I culturally, I don't think we're in a place where most people expect to be married their entire life, whereas I do.
SPEAKER_04Probably not, and I do also. And it's one of those things where I like to live in a world where I believe that there's still some faith and trust that I can put at least in one person in my life, and that person happens to be my beautiful wife. Yeah. And if she's listening, I love you, babe. Which I don't know if she listens because we don't talk about much stuff that she's interested in. Which is fine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's fine. I mean, every once in a while, who who knows? She might be really interested in flock cameras.
SPEAKER_04So, uh uh, what does that have to do with flock cameras? I mean, are we uh entering in a prenuptial agreement with the government by using flock cameras?
SPEAKER_02It had absolutely nothing to do with that. I get these AEI emails and I thought I found it very interesting. What is AEI? Um American What does AEI stand for? Um American Enterprise Institute. That might be it.
SPEAKER_04Really?
SPEAKER_02American Enterprise Institute, yeah. What? Um public policy out research. Um they're more of a conservative um research uh outfit, but I've always listened to them. Um I always got their emails, always got their information. I think they do a pretty good objective job of looking at data and and such, so very good. Very good.
SPEAKER_04A E I.
SPEAKER_02Anything else on the top of your head, the tip of your tongue?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Speaking of well, so there's these two guys out fishing. They're in the boat, just kind of, you know, the waves are rocking, they're cut their poles and everything. So over there's a highway that goes along the the uh pond there, you know, and they see uh motorcade, and it's pretty obvious that it's a funeral procession, right? And uh the one guy looks at his buddy and you know, he kind of gets the somber look in his face, and he reels it in, puts it in pole down, stands up, takes his hat off. He's uh just gives a moment of silence. And the other guy's like, Wow, I didn't know you cared so much. And he's like, Well, I was married to her for 30 years, so I figured I'd show my respect.
SPEAKER_02Uh didn't have a prenup or did have a prenup.
SPEAKER_04Well, to death to them part it, but he had to go fishing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So they they didn't have a prenup.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. That's not part of the joke. All right, as a follow-up. Ha ha ha. What is the world's fastest fish? A dolphin. The motorpike. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02We should probably get past the dad jokes and on to some real content.
SPEAKER_03Are you saying that's not real content? Oh, it's content, all right. That's for our fan to decide.
SPEAKER_04So, anyways, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Flock cameras.
SPEAKER_04Flock cameras.
SPEAKER_02I figured I'd give just a little bit of the history real quick about flock cameras and really what they are. I mean, we call them flock, but really they're ALPRs, automatic license plate readers, which have been around, I think the first ones were in the 70s. Um very simple technology in the 70s. Basically could barely read them, and then just they compared them against letters that were in the system, and so they could just identify for the officers a little quicker what they were. And it I think it took three or four years before they actually solved their first crime with the first rudimentary license plate reader in the 70s.
SPEAKER_04Because they probably still had to have somebody actually look at the image and say, okay, that's that's a zero, that's an O, that's a R, whatever.
SPEAKER_02No, believe it or not, they had um software that could you would have to upload characters in the system and then it would just try to recognize what this most closely resembles. But you still had to verify it.
SPEAKER_04So it's I I guess that makes sense because the like the very the perceptron, which is like the very kernel of AI, has been around since like the 50s. Yeah. So that makes sense. That could the that computer probably took up an entire building, you know. Yeah, it was a good thing. They would have an image that's like 10 by 10 pixels.
SPEAKER_02And they didn't solve a lot of crimes with it. Yeah. Um, basically what they did in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s, it was basically what plate just passed me. Um, it was very primitive. Um, and they just had a very small hot list. So they didn't solve a lot of crimes with the technology back in the day. And then and I I think you see this progression with the ability to store data, right? Like back in the day, they couldn't really store the the data very well. Um, as costly, as expensive. I mean the computers, like you said, were already huge. Um today we can store I mean it's probably magnetic tape. Yeah, I mean this little this little data device that I have to record this is probably it probably took two or three buildings to uh to store back in the 70s, eighties. So it's just the ability to store data is is um yeah infinitely more than it was back in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And so today back in the 70s, 80s, it was what plate just passed me. Well, today it's have we seen this plate before? And you can actually go back back in history, back in time, um, depending on the the the parameters and the settings. Um, but you can go back a certain amount of time and see where they've been. So you could, in a sense, create a profile of where that person or that license plate. It doesn't do person recognition, it's license plate and vehicle recognition. But uh you could go back and find out where they've been, where that where they've gone in the last 30 days, which would be vitally important if you're trying to solve a crime. Um and then of course, um, the modern day with cloud database, large camera networks, I can't remember the exact amount. There's tens of thousands of um flock cameras. And when I say flock, there are other um there are other companies that do ALPR. Um Flock is just the most famous, I guess you would say, the most well recognized. But you've got Flock, you've got Motorola, Axon, Genetic, Vercata. I mean, there's there's there's a whole list of them that are all in this. Um so when I say Flock today, really it's it's uh it's a reference to all license plate camera readers or ALPRs. But there's there's a lot of them out there. But anyways, the modern the modern uh systems, massive storage, um, powerful searches, vehicle recognition. I mean, you could uh I watched this one video where the only identifiable there was a crime, it was a theft, the only identifiable uh characteristic of the van was it was a white van and it looked like it had some blue spray paint on it. So they went in their system, sheriff did, or the police the police department did, and they typed in white van with blue spray paint, and it was able to identify that van and it was in another parking lot. They had found it, they were able to send a drone, find it, they were able to identify that he was isolated by himself, and so then they were able to send in police officers and arrest the guy for the theft. So um it not only can recognize license plates, but it can also recognize characteristics of a vehicle like dents, bumper stickers, spray paint, you know. No, it doesn't do facial recognition yet. Yet I mean, and and that's what we need to talk about. That's where we need to make sure that this thing is hemmed in, right? Like the the potential danger for something like this, I get it. Like the concerns are not lost on me. But as of yet, and I'm and I speak specifically to to flock in a lot of these because these are the this is the system I've been looking into and and reading into. But I I can tell you you're not you're not a big supporter of flock cameras.
SPEAKER_04Well, no. For a couple reasons. Okay, I'd say on some level, surveillance you can't get away from it, right? Because again, it's one of those things where if we assume that human nature is just perfect and everybody is just these little angels, then we wouldn't need any sort of surveillance surveillance, right? But we live in reality, right? Crimes happen all the time, of various degrees, various methodologies. And if you have a law enforcement body that has better tools at their disposal, then it makes it easier for them to solve crimes, right? Correct. You know, solution of a crime and the prevention of a crime are two different things. But, you know, in some way, shape, or form, if you give somebody a better tool to do their job better, that's a good thing, right? Especially with somebody with a you know badge. So on some level, I would say, sure, there's surveillance, but here's the thing that I don't like about and probably the flock cameras specifically, is uh because you said it's one of several brands, but it seems like the worst brand out there. And the the reason I say that is if you talk about if you talk about Motorola, I know Motorola has been in like the secure sort of mill spec chip space for a long time, right? Military applications often need hardening and security and stuff like that. Sure. Axon has been in the body camera game for you know long time, you know. They were formerly taser, right? So they're they're responsible for the taser technology and the body cam technology. And I think they have like cameras and glasses too. Okay, and I think that has worked pretty well to have you know surveillance basically on an officer's body that can corroborate their account of an altercation or whatever. Yeah, you know, so that's good. And then, like you said, surveillance, uh closed circuit TV, all this stuff has been around for so long. But it seems like Flock specifically, and this might be a casualty of going down the rabbit hole, um, but it it seems like here's the thing is I watched some YouTube videos, and that does not make me an expert in the least, but the things that I heard repeated often enough about Flock specifically is the fact that it seems like the devices themselves are not secure as far as like radiation leakage, as far as uh encryption and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02It seems like so you're saying somebody close to it could tap into it, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And not even somebody that's highly sophisticated. It seems like someone that's kind of a moderate level gray hat sort of person could could hack the feed and start looking at stuff.
SPEAKER_02Could hack the feed on that particular camera?
SPEAKER_04Well, not even that because they are wireless. So once they're in that camera, they're in the network of all the local cameras. So as much as Flock repeats the mantra security, security, security, sure, it doesn't seem like the hardware is as secure as it needs to be. And so there's that, which you know, I don't know anything about these other companies as far as what I've known historically, sort of anecdotally about them. It seems like Flock being a startup, they're more concerned about the AI and the networking and the analysis part, and less about the infrastructure being durable, durable, secure, hardened, all these things that uh that would uh lead to have a good a good public infrastructure. Because I mean, as you probably have seen, right, people are shooting these things. So, and they're highly recognizable. They are, yeah. So you have something that's just doesn't seem like a quality product, and that's not so much of an argument as surveillance state versus non-surveillance state. That's an argument of if we're gonna pick one of these companies to use their product, you know, let's pick the one with the best track record and the best uh, you know, just just a good company. It seems to me, and this is just my opinion, that flock's safety is kind of a shyster's.
SPEAKER_02So your issue is less with the actual technology and and more with flock itself.
SPEAKER_04Well, that that's one issue. The other issue isn't so much the surveillance state itself, but any sort of technology, if it gets, you know, the classic, if it gets into the wrong hands, can be a detriment, right? I mean nuclear power in the wrong hands, very bad. In the right hands, yeah, nuclear power is a good thing, right? Safe, secure, plentiful. So if you talk about uh a camera system that has visible camera, an IR camera, it has a radio antenna, it has a Bluetooth antenna, it has a microphone, it has all these things, and then you, you know, so it has this amazing ability to collect all sorts of data, and then the AI version or you know portion of it has the amazing ability to store massive amounts of data, to interpret massive amounts of data quickly, which is one of the advantages, right? Yeah, and all these things, it adds up to something that is a very, very, very powerful tool, and in the right hands, it's absolutely a benefit, right? Yeah. Now, the thing that I haven't seen is a graph that shows like crime statistics, both crime and crime solution before and after flock. I haven't seen this picture of like here's crime and here's after flock, and here's crime solution rates, and after flock, it goes way up, you know. I haven't, I just haven't seen that. So if you're trying to say, well, it has this huge benefit, but then you're just looking at a case here and there, it's like, okay, those are anecdotal cases, sure, and there probably was a benefit. I can't deny that. But if you're talking about overall statistics, if you if you invest $10 million in this infrastructure and the difference in crime solution rates and crime rates overall is negligible, then you just got to do the cost-benefit analysis and stuff like that. So I haven't seen a huge benefit. I have seen cases where it seems like the flock camera has been indispensable. But on the other hand, I've seen cases where it seems like the flock technology had a false positive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So here the police are accosting somebody that is actually truly innocent, and because they are so confident in the flock system, this person ends up getting, you know, accosted at home, they get arrested, they get sent to, you know, they're they're in holding, yeah, yeah. All because they because the zero on their license might look like an O. Yeah. And the system couldn't differentiate. And then the police organization didn't really do any additional investigation. Yeah. So it's one of those things where I'm pretty new to it. So, and my first gut reaction is is has been a negative one. But, you know, I remain optimistic. The other thing is that it's not just police force or you know, county sheriffs, it's private organizations, right? It's HOAs. Yeah, it's HOAs. And if there's if there's one organization that I do not want to give any more power to, it'd be HOAs. That's a whole different discussion. But you have this weird because the infrastructure is just leased from flock safety, right? You have a camera that they own that you lease the service to, sure. It that it just makes this weird, complicated relationship between private enterprise who wants to maintain anti-shoplifting infrastructure, yeah, and then law enforcement, which is trying to prevent and solve crimes. And those two don't don't necessarily always see eye to eye, you know. Sure. If if there's a flock camera that's in the parking lot of a private business and the police want to look at images from that camera, you know, they have to agree, and maybe they won't agree, and there's just that there's complications there. Sure. So it could be that we're just in the phase of this sort of emerging technology and there's always give and take, and we need to figure out, and that's why public policy is going to be so important. It is, but you know, and in some way, shape, or form, the sort of conspiratorial science fiction part of my brain kicks on.
SPEAKER_021984.
SPEAKER_041984, but even not even science fiction, look at China, yeah, right. And I don't want to start comparing the United States government to the Chinese government because I truly believe thanks to our constitution, so take that, socialists, thanks to our constitution, which is a good, very good thing, and the Supreme Court, which has been taking a pretty reasonable stance on the right to privacy, sure, Fourth Amendment. Um, thanks to the Constitution and the Supreme Court and good public policy, you know, I'm optimistic. But if you do look at cases that already exist, I mean, China has a camera or even like 10 cameras on every street corner, constantly looking at people. They're looking at people's faces, they're checking their movements. They're they are currently doing all the things that we're afraid that these flock cameras will do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're creating a credit score for everybody there. So if you if you get mad at the ticket line or when you're buying a coffee, you get frustrated, you you have a profile now that this person is slightly angry. When he doesn't get the right temperature of coffee. Yeah. Or he tends to speed when he's angry. And so they have this very detailed profile about who you are and what you do, your movements and all these things. And now we're into the point where like they're trying to predict crimes now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And now you haven't even done anything, and now you're guilty of a crime.
SPEAKER_04Sure, because if you've deviated from your pattern of behavior, they're like, whoa, why why is this person doing something different? Put him in jail for a year so that he can correct. You can think about it. And another point to make is on the flip side of the people who are just adamantly against flock cameras. It's like if you own a vehicle from newer than like 2013 and you own a smartphone, you're already being surveilled all the time. Yeah. Because your telematic data from your car is being transmitted to the car company and then possibly being sold to insurance companies. And all the same stuff is available on your phone. Yeah. And they have microphones, they have sensors, they track your eye movements now. So for someone to like abhor the flock cameras, but then they have a smartphone and they drive a 2015 whatever SUV, it's like, well, now you're just picking and choosing which thing you're picking the most visible thing and being mad at that when you're not really making any difference. Because these people that say, Oh, the surveillance state is coming. It's like the surveillance state is pretty much already here. It's just a matter of how are we going to use the technology that pretty much already exists. Yeah. Because, like we said, the license plate readers have been around forever.
SPEAKER_0215 years in Mace County.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so, okay, what's the big difference? Well, now it's AI powered. Oh no, it's AI powered. It's so scary. Um, so, but now the most recent development, right, is you do have cars that have different sensors and they have different ways of transmitting things. So the overwhelming thing is this combination of, like you said, data storage, data processing power, data transmitting power, and then the uh sort of condensation, if that's the right word, of just things that can sense different electromagnetic wavelengths, audible wavelengths, you know, sound frequencies, stuff like that. So you have this sort of conglomeration of so many different technologies that are coming together, and that's what people are afraid of. So, in any rate, if if if you're if you're in front of a bulldozer and the bulldozer or the steamroller is coming, regardless of what you do, the smart thing to do is just okay, either talk to the driver of the bulldozer or just get out of the way. And so don't sit there and scream at the bulldozer as you get run over. It's like do something, right? So go to these uh these meetings where hopefully they remain civil and we can talk about this sort of stuff so that people that make decisions can hear from reasonable people that have an informed opinion and make good public policy decisions, you know. Let's not freak out, let's understand the technology as it is. And I hope I've brought up some actual legitimate concerns, but let's not freak out over something that pretty much hasn't really changed the game at all. It's only just a slight iteration of something that's already existed for a long time.
SPEAKER_02100%. And uh I kind of broke the three major concerns over flock cameras um into three major concerns. So one would one would be constitutional, like everybody's worried about their Fourth Amendment constitutional right being violated. The other one is personal privacy, which you mentioned. And then the third one is kind of the mass surveillance state, the dragnet approach, where like China, where they just know everything about you, they know where you're at and all that stuff. I I jump back to personal privacy for a second. Um because there's there's a big difference between a local or a private company having all your information that you willingly give them when you sign up on Apple, on Google, when you get in your car, you you agree to give them your data. So it's a contract between you and the private company. What they can do with that data, they can sell it, they can they can do lots of stuff with that data. But what they can't do with that data is throw you in jail. That's the difference between private companies and government. And that's why we have to be very protective and very concerned. And so I I I get it. Like I understand the concern around this because this isn't Google collecting this data. This is the government who, by force of a gun, can make you do things or put you places. And so they have these police powers that are scary. And I get it. Like that's that's what the Constitution is partly there to protect against is the government coming after people's rights. And so um privacy is a huge concern, but it's a different concern between personal privacy with c with companies and and the government. I guess the first question we should ask is um the constitution. And you know, we rely heavily on the courts to find the merit in these laws, in these cameras, whether or not they're violating someone's constitutional rights or not. I uh I was just looking into a couple different cases and I I found it interesting um kind of the line they're drawing for and it is, it's a it's a pretty tenuous line, I think. And I I think we we need to tread lightly and we need to be very careful that we don't um cross this line. And I think at some point the Supreme Court's probably gonna take this up and really gonna put kind of a hard line or hard test, if you will, as to whether or not you're violating somebody's Fourth Amendment rights.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and there's been cases that have already addressed this to some degree.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um specific one was in 2018, Carpenterse United States, where the court held that obtaining extensive historical cell phone location information constituted a Fourth Amendment search because, and here's the key people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements, despite individual movements occurring in public. Yeah. So basically profiling. When you when the government starts profiling where someone is going or something like that, then it's a violation of someone's constitutional rights.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because the way that they propose that these cameras work, right, is they're just taking snapshots of public areas and then they're analyzing the pixels of those snapshots, right? Yep. But what that case was saying is I believe is as you sort of build this, you know, because if you have because there's more than just to a snapshot of what's in it, right? Because if you take a picture of a street, you know what direction those cars are going. You probably know about how fast they're going because of the speed limit. You can make an assumption there. Sure. And if there's a camera down here, you can have this sort of sequence of so many different still images that you basically you can track that person from one and that, and that's really how they they do stuff. Now they say, Well, we're not taking video, and we're not actually moving the camp, we're not panning the camera to follow one particular vehicle. And so, and like you said, I mean the the line gets pretty fine because what is video except for a series of still images? Sure, right? So, what constitutes a video camera versus just a still camera? It's just the frame rate, right? If you take a picture every second, it's kind of a still camera. Well, that's a very good thing. If you take 20, yeah, if you take 24 images per second, well, that's video. That's video, right? So it's one of these things where the the camera on the street corner is really not novel in any way. It's the conglomeration of all these technologies. But going back to this carpenter case, it seems like all these pieces, like okay, the the telematic data from your car or the cell phone data that you have in your pocket, and then that combined with just an extensive network of flock cameras or whatever ALPR you're talking about, that becomes it, it becomes kind of coincidentally this whole picture of someone's movements.
SPEAKER_02It can be.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it can be. And so that's what they're trying to guard against, because that's what we have in China, is because of the huge processing power and data capabilities of their network of surveillance cameras, they can track a billion people. And so if you are and if you have this social credit score, they're looking at what you're doing every day. Yeah, you know, so I think, and that's why I say the Supreme Court is a good thing, and the Constitution is a good thing, because what's keeping the United States from steamrolling into a Chinese like surveillance state is those protections afforded to us by the Constitution and by the Supreme Court, you know, and specifically in this case, yeah, and they're trying to draw that line, that draw the line between public safety and privacy. So that's why, again, I would reiterate to socialists who want to abolish and you know mutilate the Supreme Court and the Constitution, you're an idiot if you want to do that. Because the socialists, I mean, that's the only way that socialism can work is if you have a really, really complete surveillance state.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, powerful state.
SPEAKER_04So anybody who wants to entertain socialism but doesn't like the surveillance state, I'd say you're just kidding yourself.
SPEAKER_02So let me because there's there's the the ideal, then there's reality, and then there's the dystopic, right? And I feel like people are operating in in not a lot of people are are operating in reality. So there's there's some who are very idealistic about this software. You don't have anything to worry about, just go back to bed, don't worry about it. I think that's too idealistic. Like I do too. I mean, come on, we're dealing with human nature here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Then there's the dystopic that says, oh my gosh, they're following me everywhere I go so that they can murder me. And a little bit of paranoia probably mixed in there. Sure. And which I think that fear is extreme. I mean, extreme in that we're in the United States, not extreme in that China exists and China does that exact thing, and you have no rights in China. Yeah. If you are a dissident towards the state, if you are a problem, if you create some type of liability for the st the state of China, you're just disappearing. You just disappear. And so it's not dystopic to reference something like that because it exists today in in many states, but not in the United States. So how do we marry the idealistic, understanding the dystopic that can happen, and find some h form of happy medium? Um and maybe there's not a happy medium. I'm I I believe there is a happy medium with a recognition that humans are fallible. Um so for example, and I think a lot of this comes down to mistrust of government institutions or police officers. There's a lot of police officer hate and mistrust in this. We don't trust them whatsoever. Look at all the abuse that has happened in this system.
SPEAKER_04And maybe I can say something on that because looking at these videos that are analyzing flock cameras and stuff, that was the common thread that really just left a bad taste in my mouth. Is it seems like they were all anti-police. And if there's one thing that I don't want this whole discussion to do, it's to cast general aspersions on the police. Because I'm a back the blue kind of guy, or in the case of Mason County Sheriff's back the green, because it's kind of their color. But if you have people that are just putting themselves on the line, hey, let's respect these people. You know, they're trying to do their jobs, they're they're out there, they're the ones that have to face the criminals to do the investigative work. So, on the one hand, if there's a tool that can make their job easier, yes. But in the meantime, hey, I'm gonna respect the work that they have done before the flock cameras, and I'm gonna respect them as people that are out there on the streets every day trying to keep us safe. So if I have a, you know, a pretty stark criticism of all these people that are anti-flock, it seems like they're anti-police. They are. And we don't need to entertain that because that's just ridiculous. A lot of them are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There are some people who have legitimate concerns too. So like we can't brought we can't brush with broad strokes here. Yeah. Um, there are some people who have very like yourself, you have very legitimate concerns about the software. I think we need to keep it at a policy level, though. I think we need to keep it where it where the dis with the decision makers. Yeah. Um, making the police officers evil is something that never works out. When you try to abolish police officers or police departments because you think they're um policing poorly or something like that, trust me, when you abolish them, people are screaming for them within months to get them back or yeah, because of the rampant crime.
SPEAKER_04And then, you know, casting these people as evil villains, I'm always of the opinion that people will rise to their expectation. So if they're out there assuming that people think that they're evil, yeah, it's probably gonna prompt them to do more nefarious things. But if we sort of say, no, they're the paragon of virtue in in the culture, in the society, in the community, I think they're gonna rise to that occasion.
SPEAKER_02And here's our expectation of them. Yeah. And when they fall short of this is expectation, if they're following their girlfriend around on flock cameras, yeah, they're building profiles of people based on anything other than the fact that that person is a criminal and still have spold a vehicle, yeah, um, then they're done. They're out. Um, they're prosecuting the full extent of the law.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, just like a weapon that we give these police officers. We give them weapons that are not accessible to the public. Yeah. You know, and they get to carry them around in places that the public can't carry them around in. Um, and if they misuse that weapon, they're done, they're out, they're they're they're you know put to the full extent of the law. Yeah. And uh this is the same thing. It's a tool that can be abused. And because there's so much outrage, because uh popular opinion is probably against these things.
SPEAKER_04Um, it seems absolutely because of the horseshoe theory and yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So people'll open is against this. So if these things are going to succeed, they need to have some successes, like you were talking about earlier. There needs to be some data that says we're improving. Now, I've seen some, especially around car thefts, and I've seen some criminals talking on YouTube, talking about you can't steal a car today because of flock cameras, because they catch them instantly. Because the power of storage and and data analysis, AI, quickly, they catch these things quickly, and they can they they immediately notify law enforcement and then they can literally follow them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, um, and so because the whole facial recognition thing aside, yeah, what these things are good at and what 99.999% of it is is recognizing vehicles, whether it's license plates, dents, refracts, bumper stickers, like recognizing all those characters and rectangular features on a car. Correct. They're very, very good at that.
SPEAKER_02Very good at it, and they can track criminals well. But that also means they can track me and you well. So when I drive by a flock camera, here's ideally what happens it looks at my license plate and it goes, not in the system, boom, gone, moves on. Now, Mesa County can store, and they do, if you go on their website, they store data for 30 days. That way, if there was if I was because there's a flock camera right outside of Home Depot. Yeah. If I pull in Home Depot and then I leave and I stole something from Home Depot, um, and then Home Depot says there was there was a guy in a in a tan GMC who stole a stole something, they can go back in that flock camera back 30 days and say, There it is, here's where he went. We know who he is.
SPEAKER_04Is that why that it seems like the theft prevention mode for and I'm thinking of Walmart specifically, but I know there's a lot of flock cameras in the Walmart parking lot. They say, Don't try to prevent anybody from stealing anything. What you do, because this is like plain clothes security personnel who are just kind of watching in the store. If you see somebody put something in their jacket and then they walk out, you identify their car. You don't approach them, you don't contact them, you don't say anything, you don't even let them know that you're on to them. You watch them get into their car, and then the flock camera does the rest. Is that I I'd assume so. And that just kind of is a dots that got connected.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, because there's a lot of private companies that are using this because and the whole idea of this is to dissuade crime. Yeah. Like we all want to live in a community where there's not a lot of incentive for crime. As in, like, hey, I would love to have a 60-inch flat screen, but if I walk out of here, I know I'm walking right into the jail downtown because I'm gonna get caught. Yeah, and we want that because then we are secure in our persons, we're secure in our businesses if you own one, we're secure in our ability to travel, all that stuff. People aren't gonna violate our rights because there's not a lot of incentive. In fact, there's a lot of disincentive to violating my rights, and that's that's what we want, and that's the line we're trying to draw.
SPEAKER_04And because I did go on that uh DFLOC website and looked at the location, and I don't know how accurate that information is. Yeah, but it seemed to me, because I also kind of looked at it side by side with the crime density map of the Grand Valley. Sure. And so in the crime density map, you got the green areas, you got the yellow areas, you got the red areas. What I noticed was is that the flock cameras seemed highly dense in the yellow areas. Okay. In the green areas, almost none. In the red areas, very few compared to the yellow areas. And it as I looked into it, it seemed like you know, the red areas. I mean, we all know where those are in the Grand Valley, right? Wouldn't wouldn't you want flock cameras a little more highly dense in the red areas?
SPEAKER_02You would think so.
SPEAKER_04And and in my little anecdotal sort of search, it didn't seem that way.
SPEAKER_02So it's a good question. I mean, I've I've talked with we have a real real-time crime center as well where we work with, I say we, I mean the sheriff's office. The sheriff's office um works with private businesses that have been burglarized multiple times, and they will they will contract with the sheriff's office and allow them to put a camera up there, not a flawed camera, but just a surveillance camera. Um that way if there's a theft, they can go back and they can say, here he is, he got in this car, and then they have identity of a car, and then they can track him. And so I know in areas where crime is heavy, that type of crime is heavy, they have those types of agreements with people's because they they know they're high-trafficked areas for for crime. So um I know you're I guess your example is more anecdotal, I'd have looked into it, but yeah, um I mean it's a good question at the same time.
SPEAKER_04But what I absolutely saw is like the highest density were retail areas. Yeah. So Rim Rock, the mall, Home Depot, all those areas. Daft and car theft. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because when people get in out of their car and go into a store, yeah, it's prime prime target for your vehicle being stolen.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And also, those are public places, those aren't neighborhoods, right? So it seems like maybe that little bit of evidence is evidence of no, in the residential areas, we do want to respect people's privacy and treat that with more respect and sort of a discernment than in in the mall, right? Because in the mall, it's privately owned land, but it's still a very public place. Yeah, right. You got Patterson Road, you got the parking lots, you got you know, thousands of people that are all they're not at home.
SPEAKER_05Sure.
SPEAKER_04They're working, they're shopping, they're doing whatever. And so that's a public place. So it seems like if that's sort of the public forum, then that should be policed better, both for the businesses and for the safety of the people that are those businesses.
SPEAKER_02The the greater constitutional question is do you have a um constitutional right or expectation of privacy when you're um in the public square?
SPEAKER_04And it seems like that's where that fine line, because you mentioned that carpenter one. It's like if you take the snapshots, it seems like the snapshots are okay. If I take a snapshot of 20 different cars, and incidentally the car I'm looking for is in there, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Right. But once you start building that profile, there becomes a point where that is an invasion of privacy.
SPEAKER_02Well, and even I think it's uh I forget which uh case it was, but there was a criminal who was caught using flock cameras, and they went back 30 days and used they built a profile of him using that date. And the judge actually threw that out even with a criminal and said, No, you can't use that profile data that you collected um against him um for this particular crime that happened at this point.
SPEAKER_04Now, was that because there was no warrant involved?
SPEAKER_02Because there was no warrant, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right. So could law enforcement have gotten the warrant and looked at the data? They they could have gotten a warrant and then built a profile of this gentleman and then probably prosecuted him as a with some sort of external evidence of like, you know, we have an eyewitness that places you here, and then we want to We want to go back and we want to look at these cameras and build a profile or whatnot. And that's why it's so controversial, right? Is because it seems like there's this big collection of just really good benefits, right? The tools that law enforcement can use to do the things that they're trying to do. Yeah. Keep us safe, do all these things. And then there's just a mountain of you know, the antithesis uh evidence.
SPEAKER_02So So I wanna, I mean, we're we're getting close, but I wanna close to a solution. Yeah. All right. I want to hem it in and maybe give you my my kind of 30,000 feet on flock cameras. I can make the argument idealistically for flock cameras. The benefit it provides, let's hem officers in, let's put a boundary, the courts are amazing. Um, you know, they're gonna protect us against our rights, right? Practically, reality, in reality, you've got humans running the system. There's always gonna be errors. And in fact, most of the errors you find today are human errors. They they misread something, they misinputted something, um, they accidentally put a license plate in the hot list that shouldn't be there. You you name it, you know. So um a lot of the errors we see today are not huge are are not computer errors or flock errors, they're they're human errors. And yes, as as much of a badge supporter as I am, you get bad put. Police officers, because we're human. And I I can only imagine the temptation if you're if you're a police officer, you're married, and you have a suspicion that your your um spouse is cheating on you. And they said they were here that night, but you strongly believe they weren't there and you have access to all the cameras. Can you imagine the temptation just to say, let me see if she was out he or she was actually there?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean because it's all in the database, easily searchable.
SPEAKER_02Easily searchable. Um so there's that human fallibility to this that needs to be hemmed in. And the the nice thing about it is the system logs everything. And that type of search is improper and it will it will flag. Like, why were you searching a license plate that wasn't in the the uh the hot database?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it didn't have a case number or so.
SPEAKER_02It didn't have a case number or anything like that. That's a problem. That'll that'll red flag, and that officer's gonna get investigated and probably lose his job, and it's as they should lose their job. And so there's got to be this expectation. So I understand reality. I think we can, I I'm I'm optimistic about this um this software, the flock cameras. Um, I know a lot of police officers and sheriff's officers, um, they're good people, and they just want to solve crimes. When people have a vehicle stolen, they want to get it back. They want people to feel secure in their persons, they want them to feel secure in their homes. When they go out shopping, they want them to feel secure. This isn't downtown LA or Chicago. Yeah, this is Grand Junction, Colorado. And we want people to feel safe and secure at the same time. And I believe we can have both at the same time. I believe we can have a system that does not violate people's right to privacy. Um and that's a fine line, and people would disagree with that, but we we've got to find that line. And then and and and in that reason, I'm the full supporter. I guarantee you there's gonna be legislation this next year that tries to hem this even more. I hope we don't make it illegal because I think we've made a lot of gains here in Mesa County. Mesa County is one of the lowest auto theft counties in the state of Colorado, much in part, if you ask the sheriff, due to these slot cameras. Because we find them, we get them back quickly, and there's this criminal stock. Don't steal cars in Mesa County because you're gonna get caught, type thing. So um I think it's of benefit um on a whole to the community. But we have to be held accountable. So both extremes are bad. I think both extremes are bad.
SPEAKER_04And balance is hard to find.
SPEAKER_02Balance is hard to find.
SPEAKER_04But finding the balance requires calm, reasoned discourse.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's what we're having right now. I mean, I wouldn't call it all calm. I've gotten some pretty nasty emails showing some support for flock cameras, but showing nasty emails showing support for flock cameras or opposition. Nasty emails to me, because I've shown a modicum of support for flock cameras. Not a modicum, I I I believe in the technology as it's used in Mesa County right now. I think we can make it better. Um, if flock is not the right company, then we need to figure that out. But we've been using it for 15 years, and and Mesa County's doing a really good job um on yeah compared to the rest of the state.
SPEAKER_04But and I mean, if if that data is good and it's out there and it shows like the before flock, the after flock, yeah, the effects of flock, if I can use an alliteration, yeah. Man, that would be great to see because that in my mind that was lacking, right? Is just the evidence of yeah, these flock cameras make a big difference, even though they're a big investment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's actually the one question the other day when we were in public hearing that really had me thinking, because they were saying, is this multi-million dollar investment? Is it of benefit? And I thought to myself, yeah, that's a good question. If crime has ticked up since we've started with flock or something like that, why are we spending millions of dollars? We could we could put a couple more officers on the street. We you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04So because the another anecdote that I saw was like, okay, here's the the crime, sort of the the overall crime level. Here's when flock was implemented, and here's the crime level afterwards, right? But they don't tell you the crime was already decreasing ahead of that. Sure. So there's there's kind of massaged data that we're seeing, and some data's being omitted. So it's like show us the honest data, and then we can make a good reasoned decision.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the and the in addition to we we've had Flock for like a year or more now, but we've also had Motorola cameras for 15 years.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, like I said, the Motorola's been in that space for a long time. So maybe I can kind of just collect my own thoughts and say, as someone who was uh entered this room sort of on the on the opposite side, of just like what would it take for me to be in favor of the flock cameras, like specifically flock cameras as license plate readers to be like, okay, I'm I'm for that, right? Yeah. And the first one is if this is highly sensitive data, like this can mean it could mean life and death for someone, sure, right? This is highly sensitive law enforcement data. It's got to be secure in the infrastructure. These cameras cannot be hackable, they have to be hardened, they have to be non-leaky when it comes to electromagnetic interference and stuff like that. You can't spoof them, you can't jam them, all this stuff, right? Yep. We need good infrastructure. And it doesn't seem like Flock is doing that, right? Fair enough. They're kind of a startup, they want to just grow and grow and grow. And so the other thing is I think we should take a look at the crime map and make good judicious decisions about where these are located in reference to how much crime is in a certain area. Because if you have a hotspot for car theft and you put cameras there, like you said, a lot of times if people know they're if okay, if well, this is true for everybody. If someone knows they're being watched, they're going to behave in a totally different manner than if they're not being watched. Yep. So that's not to say everybody reverts to criminal behavior when they're in the privacy of their own home, but that's just the fact of the that's human nature. People act differently when they're being observed. You can't argue with that.
SPEAKER_03Human nature.
SPEAKER_04So if we look at the crime statistics map and say what makes the most sense as far as where these are located, you know, and then we have just good public policy that's very specific and is because it seems like the legislature is always like five years behind the technology companies. Let's try to close that gap and make good public policy that can close the gap to the present time and then is a little bit has a little bit of foresight to say, okay, we see China, like we see you, CCP, we don't want to be you, so how can we manage public policy to accomplish aiding the law enforcement in the performance of their duties, you know, being a benefit, a true, stark benefit, and then not devolving into tyranny, right?
SPEAKER_02And I think I think, like I said, the the sentiment against flock is the popularity is there. Like the majority of people are against the idea of flock. They probably don't understand it to its extent, but yeah, um what I'm saying is I think the majority of people would agree we don't want a surveillance state. I agree with that. We don't want this large dragnet that covers the community and builds profiles of people. We don't want that. I think this would be an easy bill to build um this next legislative session for Colorado to say we don't want this. We are gonna make sure we hem this thing in, we define it and we put boundaries around it so it works well to catch the bad guys, but man, leaves the good guys alone. Yeah, let's people travel from A to B and nobody knows what they're doing. And I there are gonna be some who will never ever want a single camera anywhere that's owned by the public because that's too far. But I think there's a reasonable balance. Um, and so yeah, that in that idealistic state, some dose of reality, I think we can do this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So the biggest concern for me in this whole discussion is flock, flock safety. Sure. It seems like that is the wrong company. Okay, you know, other ones, maybe axon, maybe whatever, you know. I don't want to sit here and be a proponent of axon or anything like that. But someone should be able to stand the test of the public scrutiny of saying, are these systems I mean, do they last a long time? Are they safe? Are they durable? Are they secure? All these things. So that's probably my biggest issue of just it seems like the flock safety company is just terrible. Because a different case in point is some of these podcasters that I was listening to that were doing this in-depth analysis of this technology also looked at ring doorbell cameras. And the person that I was following, or at least listening to their podcast, they were saying that they had some security issues with ring doorbell, and they approached because they did the same with Flock. They said, Here's everything I found, here's the vulnerabilities in your system. Flock, I think, sent them an NDA that says, You will not speak of this, you will not do this, you know, and it kind of shut the door. Ring doorbell, on the other hand, said Um, they call it a bug bounty. It's like, hey, thank you for doing this, thank you for identifying this vulnerability. We're gonna rectify the situation very neat because the product that we have, we want it to be this stellar product. Yeah, and so you know, you have these two different attitudes as far as the technology goes, the physical infrastructure, ring doorbell, they worked to rectify the vulnerabilities. Flock safety, it seemed like they did not want to rectify the vulnerabilities. They wanted to just keep the status quo, keep building the same cameras, don't invest any more engineering into it. They just want to build the brand. Yeah, they don't want to make a good product.
SPEAKER_02You saw what the trouble that ring got in during the Super Bowl. They had an ad that said, Hey, um, with Ring, we connect your um your doorbell cameras, and when you have a missing dog, uh Oh, the missing dog ad, yeah. Yeah, and then people were like, if they can do that with a dog, they're doing that with humans. Yeah. And so Ring immediately pulled that capability from their cameras.
SPEAKER_04But well, and let's be fair, the the physical infrastructure in the camera does not change. It's all in the AI algorithm that identifies people faces, dog faces, human faces, the rules and boundaries, spray paint on cars. So that's where we need good public policy to says, okay, we know the possibility of this uh technology to go this far, but we're gonna limit it to here because we believe that here is a good boundary to accomplish what it needs to accomplish for public safety. If it goes beyond that, that's a bridge too far, and suddenly there's gonna be legal consequences. Suddenly, your state of Colorado contract is gonna get canceled that's worth a billion dollars or something, right? Sure. So I think that's a good way to leverage these companies to say if you want to be a successful company in this space, you have to play by the rules that are set by the local, the state, the federal legislature, and you have to play according to those rules, or you're just not gonna play at all. Yep, you know, because those rules ultimately, and this is idealistic too, they're ultimately for the good of the citizens of that particular region.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So totally agree. I think we're closer than we think. To a good solution? No, it's a like where we put where we agree on flock versus yeah, deflock.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's what happens when you just kind of reason together.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So well, I think that's about a wrap.
SPEAKER_04There'll probably be a follow up episode to this one there. For sure. So because we can't cover everything. We can't.
SPEAKER_02So anyways.
SPEAKER_04Well, as we always say.
SPEAKER_01As we always say.